Coming up on Bloomberg this weekend. Vice president fans on the ground in

Switzerland. Uh, I think we're hopefully making

progress on the square until we make progress on the Lebanon fire.

As to what to expect from the first round of direct nuclear talks.

Plus, Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is closed again as President Trump

threatens American tolls. The latest after 55 commercial ships

passed through the waterway on Saturday. And happy Father's Day to all the dads

out there. If we lean into it, we can see

fatherhood for this incredibly abundant time in our lives, not just for a better

relationship with our children, but newfound levels of empathy that help us

be better managed as a world better leaders.

How modern fatherhood is evolved, and how it's helping men thrive inside the

home and the office.

Welcome to Bloomberg this weekend, live from Bloomberg's world headquarters in

New York. I'm Christina Ruffini.

I'm David Gura alongside Lisa Mateo. It is Sunday, June the 21st.

I will note it is also Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, thank you very much.

I wasn't looking for that, but maybe I was like, I think Happy Father's Day to

my dad as well. Welcome to all our listeners and viewers

across all our Bloomberg platforms, on radio, TV, streaming, on Bloomberg.com

and the Bloomberg Business app. We're going to get straight to Lisa

Mateo this morning with the headlines. You got it.

And U.S. and Iranian negotiators are in

Switzerland to begin talks on an interim peace deal.

Pakistan set to carry Katari mediators. They are also taking part.

Vice president JD Vance. He seemed optimistic while leaving for

Switzerland last night. So we'll have a couple things.

Involves putting in things the right way to discuss.

But I'm going to go through at all events.

They're saying there will be a few days of talks.

He's now in Switzerland, along with President Trump's two global

negotiators, Jared Kushner and Steve Wycoff.

It comes after Tehran said it closed the Strait of Hormuz because of Israel's

attacks on Lebanon. But earlier Saturday, Vance told Fox

News Channel's Fox and Friends Weekend that the strait is open.

We actually got 16 million barrels of oil out of the Straits of Hormuz

yesterday. That is a record going back to even

before the conflict started. So you're seeing those ships move.

The second thing the president has asked us to do, of course, is to get the

enriched stockpile of uranium to ensure that we make it effectively impossible

for the Iranians to rebuild their nuclear program.

U.S. Central Command said commercial ship

traffic increased in the strait on Saturday, with 55 merchant ships

transiting cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil.

The U.S. and Iran are a few days into a 60 day

window for negotiations after reaching a memorandum on Wednesday.

Doiron has warned it will require ships to have its permission and mandatory

insurance in order to cross the waterway.

But in a social media post on Saturday, President Trump said there could be no

tolls during or after the ceasefire period unless they are imposed by and

for the United States of America. Now, meanwhile, three fully laden Indian

Lakes supertankers have re-emerged in the Gulf of Oman today, pointing to a

Hormuz traffic uptick. That's according to the ship tracking

data compiled by Bloomberg. And the ships were last seen trying to

cross the Strait of Hormuz late Friday, carrying between them nearly 6 million

barrels of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil. Pope Leo took a day trip to northern

Italy on Saturday. The pontiff exalted the first American

saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, as a model for Christians today to care for

migrants in need as he visited her birthplace.

The visit to northern Italy. It's part of Leo's summertime grand

Tour. His next Italy day trip is on July 4th

when he heads to Lampedusa. That's the Sicilian island that's a

major destination for migrants fleeing North Africa, for Italy.

And yes, the U.S. open.

It enters its final day at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club along Long Island.

Wyndham Clark tops the leaderboard seven under par, followed by a four way tie

for second at one under par, and that includes the likes of Sam Stevens and

Scottie Scheffler. All names I can pronounce.

Very, very good. Thank you as always.

Very well done. Thank you.

All right. As Lisa laid out, the U.S.

delegation is now on the ground in Switzerland.

These are new images for our TV viewers, showing Vice President JD Vance

alongside special envoy Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner.

They're joined by Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is helping

mediate along with emissaries from Qatar.

Iran's delegation is also there. The four groups are expected to meet

soon. We'll be watching that over the course

of the day. AP international correspondent Philip

Crowther is joining us now from Zurich. Phil, great to speak with you once

again. And I wonder if you could start by just

setting the expectations for us here at the top, the vice president on the

tarmac before he left for this trip, talking about the potential to make

progress on the nuclear file, the potential make progress on the Lebanon

issue. What can we expect over the course of

today? Well, I think it's pretty safe to

presume that we're going to have a whole day of talks here in Switzerland today

that are happening at this luxury resort above Lake Lucerne.

And if the last time that the United States and Iran came face to face and

spoken negotiated, that was in Islamabad during this war.

Well, then they might go all the way into the night.

These kinds of talks can also happen for one day.

Then they take a little bit of a rest, and then they start all over again the

next day in terms of how this is going to happen.

Now, what we've seen so far is, as you saw in those pictures, bilateral

meetings with the Pakistani delegation, they are the mediators after all.

But then you go into something called quadrilateral talks.

That's essentially means that there are going to be four parties in that

discussion. It's going to be the United States,

Iran, the mediator, Pakistan, but also the mediator, Qatar as well.

They have been crucial over the last few weeks to get this memorandum of

understanding signed in the first place. Now they're going to be discussing that

agreement because it was signed rather quickly.

And some of the parts in it, well, they're not quite working out yet.

And they need to be discussed whether the Strait of Hormuz remains entirely

open. How a more permanent cease fire can be

achieved between Israel and Hezbollah, for example, as well a cease fire

between the United States and Iran that is holding and has been holding for

months now. But there is all sorts of there are all

sorts of obstacles that they are going to encounter during these talks today

and again, possibly into tomorrow as well.

But standby, because we want to bring in Shannon Kingston.

She's ABC news State Department reporter Shannon, it's so nice to see you.

I do want to ask you, before Vice President JD Vance left, you had this

press conference in DC and again on the tarmac.

One of the big sticking issues here is obviously what's happening in Lebanon.

And when he was asked about the press conference, he kind of punted that to

Secretary of State Rubio. I'm wondering how that ended up being

his portfolio and what what Rubio is doing to try to address that issue since

he is not overseas in these debates. I'm sorry, in these talks.

Sorry too much, too much politics. I've got debates on the mind while

they're expected to be contentious at points, we do know that, especially when

it does come to Lebanon. Lebanon has been kind of like the side

plot here, with the ability to disrupt the diplomacy happening on the main

stage between the U.S. and Iran basically this entire time.

And we did see the negotiators in the memorandum of understanding really tried

to bring it into the umbrella of that agreement and say in the very first

point of that document that there was going to be a cease fire in Lebanon.

But of course, these parties don't directly control those warring factions,

Israel and Hezbollah. So the idea, at least, to hear

administration officials put it, is that Iran would be in charge of holding back

its proxy group, Hezbollah, while in the Israel would be constrained by the U.S.

to try to accomplish at least what President Trump has described as a cease

fire in the Middle East, which means that both sides are firing at each other

just a little bit more moderately in the way.

Secretary Rubio has been brought into all this is he's been working the

phones, talking to the Israeli government, you know, trying to

communicate the message from the Trump administration, maybe in friendlier

terms. And we've heard the vice president put

it from the podium, but there's only so much control he has.

He's also been running these negotiations between representatives of

the government of Israel and Lebanon at the State Department.

We have more talks set to take place in Washington this week.

But so far, even though there have been some moderate breakthroughs in

Washington, we haven't seen really any real world impact play over onto this in

southern Lebanon, where this fight is being fought, because really, Israel

says it still has security concerns and Hezbollah is still firing back.

Philip, let me turn to you on what's the backdrop or one of the backdrops to

these talks today, and that is the Strait of Hormuz and the ability to get

ships through it. And we heard from Central Command, 55

ships got through yesterday. Then it was close.

The US is saying it's not close, so a lot of ambiguity is still remaining over

whether or not it's open. And ships are able to have free transit

through it. The president of the United States

tweeting in recent hours he were posting on social media, I should say there will

be no tolls in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the ceasefire period, and

there will be no tolls after the 60 day period has expired unless they are

imposed by and for the United States of America.

Should the deal not be completed. For services rendered as the Guardian

Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present

and future reimbursement of costs, I think that this speaks to the thorny

ness of this issue here. I think when that memo of understanding

was signed just a couple of days ago, there was a feeling this was finally

cleared up. Philip, it seems that is not the case

entirely. No.

And you can see from what has been happening over the last 24 hours how the

Strait of Hormuz can be an immediate stumbling block.

And in these talks and also a joke, a card that essentially Iran holds right

now and discovered that it is holding with this war in the first place.

The United States, I think it is generally agreed, had not prepared for a

scenario where it attacks Iran and Iran, then says it's going to close the Strait

of Hormuz and not just do that. Also basically create a tollbooth system

and make money off tankers making their way through the Strait of Hormuz.

That was not planned by the United States, but it has now become a very

concrete reality. So the Joker card that Iran has is that

it can close the Strait of Hormuz again at a moment's notice, and indeed said so

yesterday. But it had done so as a reaction to

further Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Hezbollah targets.

The United States, as you mentioned, says, no, no, the Strait of Hormuz is

open, and we have Navy ships there to make sure that there is free passage.

In other words, we're not entirely sure what is happening there right now.

But what we saw from the start of this war is if there is even a small risk

that a tanker might be attacked. Then, first of all, the companies that

control those ships, but also the insurance companies.

Well, they will have their doubts as to whether they want to see ships go

through the Strait of Hormuz. That is why this makes this such a

fragile element of the agreement that was signed by the United States, Iran

and by the mediator, Pakistan, because it does foresee the full reopening of

the Strait of Hormuz without any payments to Iran during that 60 day

period. But as we discussed yesterday, already,

Iran now telling tankers and the transport companies that they have to

buy insurance to be able to get through the Strait of Hormuz in the first place,

but they might not need to pay that in the first 60 days, but maybe later on.

In other words, the devil is in the detail, as always, in these kinds of

agreements. And that is precisely what they are

supposed to figure out here in Switzerland.

Yeah, we were saying earlier, it's giving resort fee when you check into a

hotel that you think you've paid for, and all of a sudden there's extra fees

you have to pay. Uh, Shannon, I want to ask you about the

players involved. Uh, Iran sent the speaker of its

parliament, uh, along with the foreign minister.

The Pakistani, uh, prime minister is that foreign minister is there along

with the U.S. team, and the Qatari PM is also there.

Talk to us about these individuals and the format of these talks.

Are they going to be direct, face to face negotiations?

Are they going to be the we're in one room or in another?

People are shuttling back and forth with paper?

Or is it unclear yet exactly the format of how this is going to unfold?

Right. Well, it is, uh, pretty much an open

question. Now we are seeing all of the key players

in these negotiations together in the same place pretty much since the meeting

in Islamabad that happened in the first half of April.

So that alone is a big step. Of course, a lot of these negotiations

have been happening, happening through mediators, and there have been proximity

talks where, as you point out, they're in the same room, but they might as well

be on the other side of the planet, because most of the communication is

happening between basically pass notes. Now, we know the Trump administration

has really emphasized having these direct talks.

They really see value in getting, uh, face to face across from each other in

the table, talking about the relationship that's been built between

the U.S. and some of these Iranian negotiators

has been something that the vice president has brought up multiple times.

So we do expect that they're going to push for that.

But we know that the Iranian officials here have already bought a couple times

that coming to the talks, it took a lot of coordination between Iran and the

U.S. to get all these players in the same

place, because no one wanted to be stood up, basically.

We saw special envoy Steve Wycoff, Jared Kushner on the ground, first in

Switzerland, then we saw the Iranian negotiators rather start to come over,

and finally the vice president flying all the way from Washington to

Switzerland, where he's expected to be there for a couple of days.

If these talks go well, I mean, we know that they can really, you know, hash it

out. That Islamabad meeting was a marathon,

but we're still in a very precarious situation where we could see really

either side pull back, even though this negotiation is supposed to all play out

over the next 60 days. That's a very tight timeline.

Um, let me pick up on that, Shannon, if I could.

We had the Vice president yesterday saying I can only be there for a day or

two, and the countdown clock is ticking here for this 60 day period.

What is the white House saying? What are the indications for the

appetite for this to continue beyond that?

In other words, how hard and fast is that 60 day deadline, do you think?

Well, I think that 60 days, of course, that's what the negotiators settled

upon. But really, what's looming over all of

this is President Trump's patience, right?

60 days. That might seem like no time at all,

especially when you consider that the JCPoA, JCPoA, the Obama era nuclear deal

that did take 20 months of intensive negotiations.

So that timeline is very tight. But all of the hurdles, the chaos we've

seen just getting to this point leads one to believe that the much bigger

issue going forward might not be the very tight timeline, but actually just

keeping these talks from going completely off the rails.

And we've even heard senior administration officials who've been

really speaking to the Hawks in President Trump's administration, who

really would have rather just kept the pressure up on a run and dealt with the

consequences rather than entering this agreement.

Now, they've said that they could be able to predict whether Iran is actually

willing to come to the table and negotiate in good faith in just a couple

of weeks. So both sides really, even though this

has been going on seemingly forever, they're still feeling each other out

here. So I want to play you some sound.

President Trump spoke to Axios earlier this week, and he laid out a few

possible options for going forward. The only way I can get tougher is if I

go in there for another 2 or 3 weeks and continue to bomb the hell out if I'm

right. But what does that get us?

The Strait of Hormuz will not be open as long as you're dropping bombs.

That thing is automatically closed because those ships cost 500 to $1

billion apiece. They're not going to be sailing with

rockets. So just to finish,

I just looked. Oil is tumbling.

The ships are roaring out of there. They want to go home.

They want to drop. They're all full with oil.

This is a gusher. I mean, at this we have 7 or 800 ships

are leaving. But if I attack them, none of those

ships are leaving. The stock market is way up.

Way, way up. You know, the stock market is up over

the last 4 or 5 days when it looks like we're going to make a deal.

Stock is up thousands of points. Everybody's richer.

Fill up very quickly before we let you go back to reporting, because we too,

like the negotiators, have limited time. I'm wondering what your take is on that.

And if you think of Shannon mentioned, President Trump's seemingly disinterest

or boredom with this issue is an asset for Iran or for the U.S.

trying to pressure people to get something done in that timeline.

I think that's very much an advantage for Iran.

Uh, because, uh, what you're hearing there is a U.S.

president who is you're absolutely right, is bored by this war, and he

wants it to be over as quickly as possible.

What you're hearing in that clip also is a president who's admitting that things

did not work out, uh, where he essentially says that if we attack Iran,

then the negative consequences happen immediately.

The Strait of Hormuz is closed immediately.

Again, that's the president admitting that he does not have all the cards.

I think that's one of the reasons, certainly, why we're looking at this

really tight 60 day timeline. He obviously wants to get a better deal,

he thinks, than what President Obama got with Iran.

And he wants to get it very, very quickly indeed.

He wants the story to be over. It's as simple as that.

All right, Philip curler from the AP. He is in Zurich and Shannon Kingston

from ABC news in D.C.. Thank you both for joining us this

morning. Well, coming up here, pressure is

mounting on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Is he on the verge of resigning after a critical election just days ago?

The audience has spoken. They want more James Woolcock.

He's going to join us next right here on Bloomberg this weekend on radio,

Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg.com and on the Bloomberg Business app.

Stay with us.

Thank you for joining us live in Bloomberg this weekend.

I'm Lisa Mateo. Let's update you on today's top stories.

And the co-founder of video game publisher Ubisoft has died after a plane

crash in western France. Local reports say cloud gaming.

He was in the private plane that went down in a resort town on France's

Atlantic coast that was scheduled to host an airshow this weekend.

He was one of two people aboard the twin engine Cessna 421.

Ubisoft is a maker of games like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry franchises.

Good. You.

Monte is a Ubisoft shareholder, and he was also chairman of Guillemot Corp,

which makes entertainment hardware and accessories.

He was 69. Protests continued in Albania over a

coastal development project in the country, linked to President Donald

Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner. The venture spans an abandoned island at

a nearby stretch of seafront on Albania's southern coast, and has drawn

criticism from environmental campaigners and critics of the prime minister's

government as well. Now, President Donald Trump says that

multiple individuals has been arrested for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial

Reflecting pool, adding that it would likely have to be at least partly

drained for necessary repairs. The pool has taken on clouds of algae

after a more than $14 million renovation project that included repainting the

floor, a shade that Trump has called American flag blue.

But the paint it began to peel off. And that's where some issues have begun

as well. Part of the appeal I've heard is

described as part of the appeal I haven't, you know, like that.

I have nothing to say after that. I have things to say.

And now they're just. Nothing can talk.

So thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.

All right. Earlier this morning, UK Business

Secretary Peter Kyle told Sky news that Keir Starmer is reflecting on, quote,

political realities as reports swirl that the UK prime Minister may indeed

soon set a timetable for his departure ahead of leadership rival Andy Burnham's

returned to Parliament, boosted by the highest favorability ratings of any

senior UK politician. Burnham has put severe pressure on

Starmer to make a decision soon. Joining us now from London James

Woolcock, Bloomberg UK's politics reporter.

James, before we get into it, I just want to say I'm old enough to remember

this. There isn't a leadership contest when

there is. A prime Minister isn't one at the

moment. But as I've said on many, many

occasions, I don't think that's a good thing for the country.

So I ask, I would also add now that on this one, which is really important,

really good, he's a huge asset to us that now will inevitably be a Manchester

mayoralty byelection starting straight away, so it's important that we pull

together for that. But if there is a contest, just to be

clear with you, then yes, I will run. I will stand.

I have said repeatedly I'm not going to walk away from that day, but I'm pretty

sure I covered that soundbite yesterday. Yeah, well there we go.

I feel like we just we just did this and it was very different 24 hours ago.

James, what's happened here over the last few hours?

Has the Prime Minister just been on the phone with his with his whip, with James

Reynolds and gotten a lot of bad news? What's what's led to this about face?

Seemingly about face? Yeah, I think you've nailed it.

I he has rung up his cabinet ministers and the playbook are ringing up the same

cabinet ministers on Friday, and 15 of them told us that they thought Keir

Starmer leaving was inevitable. Now we can report that Transport

Secretary Heidi Allen, if at Cooper, they are among the two that have

privately said there needs to be a timetable for the Prime Minister to step

down. And so, look, this isn't a new thing,

right? If we were here four weeks ago, you'd

have watched the high street resign. The Defence secretary, John Healey,

resigned last week. 25% of Labour's own MPs a call for Keir

Starmer to go. This has been building.

It's been building and building and building and you can play clips like

that one. And Keir Starmer will say everything is

fine. He's in charge.

It feels like we might be at the tipping point where the private, bitter

infighting, it's going to lead to a public change.

But I'll say until the Prime Minister says something, it's still private

infighting. Is this because these MPs are looking

ahead at their next election and knowing or thinking that they are not, they're

going to lose their seats. If Starmer is still the head of their

party, this is just not something they can sell to their constituents.

Are they worried about that? Yeah, they want to win.

I mean, look, Labour nationally is polling at 19%.

Two days ago, Andy Burnham won a byelection with 54% of the vote on a 23

percentage point swing. You look at that and you want to keep

your salary. You want to stay in power.

You want to do what you believe in politics to do, and you go all back.

The guy who can give me a result like that over the result that labor had six

weeks ago in local elections, where they lost 60% of the seats they were

defending. Is this a little bit like there's this

thing in French politics where they vote for the guy, and then as soon as they're

in office, they almost actively hate the president.

There starts to back this up. The approval ratings drop almost

immediately after someone takes office. Is there any fear that you're going to

see something similar once Burnham gets into place?

Is a very different job than what he's done before?

Yes, he is a better communicator, which is something you hear criticism levied

at Starmer quite often. But is there any fear that this could be

deja vu all over again if and when he gets the job?

I think it depends on how you look at these things.

Right. And that the UK politicians are normally

known for not being like French or Italian politics.

The difficulty the UK has is it's got a very tight fiscal situation, and Labour

promised not to borrow more in the long term.

Needs these fiscal rules we keep going on about.

And so they either have to put taxes up or cut spending.

And the Starmer government has failed to cut spending and a couple of big

landmark votes because Labour MPs don't want it.

But also tax burdens in the UK is a record high for this country.

And so it's a government that has no easy answers.

And going into the 2024 general election didn't have a conversation about

difficult trade offs. What it's doing now is kind of trying to

it's like a car trying to rev right. It's trying to find a new gear and

story. It can tell the country.

Like you say, the big risk is this new gear that is Andy Burnham.

Should he win, should there be a contest because there still isn't a formal

leadership contest that's on the way. This is a reporting on this.

He will have to try and find policies that will boost economic growth, keep

his Labour MPs happy, keep the bond markets happy and win over the public.

And it's a tough challenge and it's one of the reasons why no UK prime minister

for the past six years have been able to hold onto power for very long.

Let's dig into that intractability a bit in the Ft as a good piece this morning.

Kind of looking at this weekend, I should say looking at Andrew Murray

Burnham, his legacy at Westminster, the first time that he was there.

I want to ask you a bit about that. And I think that the thesis of the piece

is we think of him as the, yes, King of the North.

Talk about him in Greater Manchester. But he's somebody familiar with

Westminster, knows the principles. And I'm curious what insight you can

give us into the way that he might try to manage this party and do the job as

prime minister. Okay, so there's a famous joke, and bear

with me, because it'll take a little bit of explaining, which goes three Labour

leaders, Tony Blair, uh, Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn, and it goes a brownie, a

Blair, right, and a Corbyn. I walk into the bar and the bartender

goes, oh, what would you like, Andy? And so Andy is known for being in all

three of these factions. Over the course of the years, he has

served in all three governments. Not like Jeremy Corbyn ever got to being

in a government. And so he's kind of seen as this weather

vane. That is the criticism and as a

criticism. He really hates that he just swings

where the polls and the leadership goes. Thus he is outside of London.

He comes to Manchester, the third sort of biggest city, this big industrial

heartland in the north that was ruined by Thatcher and had big issues with

mining and still resents the kind of conservative era for hitting its growth.

He sees politics about being outside of London, about driving growth away for

the regions and about being a more normal human presence.

That's how he's built his brand. What is difficult to me is the financial

journalist here is how does that translate into economic policy.

He's got some big heavyweights advising him.

Goldman Sachs is former Jim O'Neill, uh, Bank of England's former Andy Haldane,

the Office of Budget Responsibility to the people who check the books, their

former chairman, Richard Hughes. These guys are well respected in the

markets. How it translates to policy that is that

is we. I strongly will be ringing my sources to

try and find out if Starmer steps down on Monday, can you walk us through what

happened? How does this go?

What do we see happen? So to me at least, I want to caveat it

by saying that this is my view. It seems unlikely he will just say I'm

gone and walk out. There is a NATO summit in three weeks.

There is a Labour conference in sort of late September.

It's far more likely he will announce a timetable by which he might say words to

the effect of, you know, my time as leader is gone.

It is then very difficult. I need to read up from my Labour

rulebook about this. But you can't just be appointed.

They will have to be in a leadership contest.

And what Andy Burnham will then need to show to Labour parliamentary members is

he is the undisputed candidate. Whether that's by doing deals with

rivals or others. But there will then be a process set out

as to what comes after Starmer. And that could take weeks.

What team Burnham are desperate to avoid is a disputed, messy, difficult contest.

But there are people who aren't Burnham fans.

Um, notably sort of the former health certainly was seen as more on the center

of the party who really want to contest. They think the big problem here is these

ideas weren't tested outside of government.

And before we just put a new person in, we need to have a big debate about what

the country does in the future. So it gets a bit messy, is the honest

answer. But what Tim Burnham wants is a clean

process, which they can say is different to the previous government, the

conservatives, which had a lot of difficult, messy, bloody leadership

contests. Whether they can achieve that will be

quite, quite a question in British politics in the weeks to come.

I don't know what Tim Burton wants, but what team wants unanimously from us in

the room is more. James, thank you so much for back to

back appearances and we hope to see you back soon.

Um, we're going to stick here with UK politics.

It's been ten years since the UK voted to leave the EU, and Bloomberg Originals

unpack the economic and political cost of Brexit that is still being felt to

this day. I remember the day when we voted on

Brexit and I took my dogs for a walk to the local voting booth.

The dogs, I think, were pro-Brexit dogs, tend to be pro-Brexit.

I was anti-Brexit. Do you want me to say that I voted leave

because I did? Amazing.

I remember from the actual days being woken up by my husband very early and

him saying, you've got to go to work because the result isn't quite what we

expected. The phenomenal events taking place here,

no one expected this result. Everyone is stunned.

I've written an essay called the 20% world, which pointed out that if the

odds on Trump being elected and Brexit and Corbyn being elected and Le Pen

being elected in France, they were all around 20%.

What was staggering was two of them were going to happen in one year.

Brexit was not just a British upset. It was an early warning light on the

dashboard of globalisation. When the results came in, there was

shocked. People were not expecting this.

The markets weren't expected with the smart money.

Thought that it was remade. I was sat at my desk watching the pound

plummet as the results rolled in. The pound has taken a thumping.

Every single industry groups trading in the red.

I realized that we were at the beginning of a very profound historical change.

I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our

country to its next destination. There was some in the European Union who

looked at a result like that and thought, surely this is going to have to

be rerun. It's such a narrow margin of victory.

The most surprising thing that happened is the degree of political chaos.

It is unleashed. This Parliament is a disgrace.

The political infighting was extraordinary, cross-party and

relentless. For goodness sake, Kevin, wouldn't you

just go? This government has no mandate for the

vicious form of Brexit. It is pursuing the economic impact.

It almost seems like a sideshow Relative to that.

We've had five prime ministers since Brexit.

Cameron didn't try and deliver Brexit. He simply resigned.

Theresa may tried to deliver it and resigned.

Boris Johnson tried to deliver it and resigned.

Liz Truss resigned and Rishi Sunak was eventually defeated in the elections.

What's interesting about Brexit is it really divided British politics along

completely new lines, and it's ended up the two main parties, particularly

really the conservatives being very wounded by it.

You can watch the whole story at Bloomberg Commodities Edge.

A who's who of our senior editors here. It's got to say all of our bosses are in

the please watch it. Many of our bosses are in that.

And also who's who of these former prime ministers.

We talked to James just about the kind of pace of change in UK politics.

It's very evident they're just seeing all of this figures whose tenures were.

I was just in many cases extremely short.

I went to Downing Street with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and we met Boris

Johnson, and he's very different. When the cameras are not on, he's much

calmer, a little less bombastic, a little bit, and then as soon as the

cameras light up, that personality just was switched on along with the lights.

All right. So we talk a lot about oil shortages.

Well, Russia is also dealing with a fuel shortage as Ukraine targets key

infrastructure in the country. We'll have the latest on the ongoing war

there and how it's impacting the Russian economy.

Bloomberg this weekend continues right after this.

Welcome back to Bloomberg. This weekend we are looking at live

pictures for our TV and online audiences from Lucerne, Switzerland, where the

quad meeting between the U.S., Iran, Pakistan and Qatar is about to take

place starts soon. We hope we will be monitoring that this

morning and possibly go to that live for some remarks from some of the ministers

and the vice president, but we're waiting to see the cameras in the room.

The reporters are in the room. So far, none of the officials are in the

room, but the flags are up, the backdrop is lit, and we will stand by the stand

by for the moment. We're going to Lisa for some headlines.

You got it. And let's start with the U.S.

open because it is a final day there at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club along on Long

Island. Now Wyndham Clark is topping the

leaderboard at seven under par, followed by a four way tie for second at one

under par, which includes the likes of Sam Stevens and Scottie Scheffler in

World Cup action yesterday. The Netherlands will they top Sweden 5

to 1? Germany beat Ivory Coast 2 to 1 and

Ecuador and Curacao tied with no goals scored.

And today Japan, while they already played Tunisia and they won four nil.

Later on Spain, they're going to take on Saudi Arabia.

Belgium battles Iran, Uruguay they play Cabo Verde or Cape Verde, whichever you

prefer. And New Zealand, they go up against

Egypt and thousands of Carolina Hurricanes fans with a jam downtown

Raleigh on Saturday for its Stanley Cup parade.

Police estimate that about 150,000 people attended the celebration.

Captain Jordan Staal he's the playoff MVP.

He hosted the Stanley Cup high on the rally stage to a roaring Crowd.

And we know today is Father's Day. But as you also know, it is the first

official day of summer in the Northern hemisphere.

Yeah, today is Summer solstice, the day when we have the longest period of

daylight, the shortest night of the year.

So yes, dads get to enjoy a few extra hours of golf, barbecuing, whatever

summer activity you decide to choose to celebrate the day anchoring the show.

There you go. More daylight.

You have more daylight hours when you get to do holiday activities.

Cheers. Me.

Lisa, will you be doing Dads Day activities?

We are. We're going to family's house and just

like, relaxing, it's lovely. All right, well, thank you so much.

I just have to make a very awkward transition now.

So I try to do that, but I'm glad you guys are having a nice afternoon.

All right. This past week, Ukraine sent a record

number of drones targeting Russian oil refineries.

At least 194 drones were downed over Moscow, with some drones reaching the

key Moscow refinery that supplies road fuel to the capital.

Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks in an effort to bring the Kremlin into

negotiating for the peace. I'm sorry.

Bring the Kremlin to the table to negotiate for peace.

Astronaut attacks are becoming more frequent.

Russia is also having trouble with its oil output.

On June the 11th, OPEC published a report noting that in May, Russia was

690,000 barrels a day below the country's required level of crude

output. Under the agreement with OPEC and its

allies. For more on Russia and Ukraine, we're

joined by Bloomberg News senior writer Stephanie Baker.

She's also the author of the book Punishing Putin Inside the Global

Economic War to Bring Down Russia. Stephanie, great to see you.

Great to speak with you. And I guess I should start with kind of

the broad question here, which is how dire straits are there?

Are they in Russia right now when it comes to energy, access to energy and

these escalating prices? Well, there are widespread fuel

shortages across Russia. Uh, more than 50 regions are reporting

fuel shortages. And in Crimea, uh, Russian occupied

Crimea, they just suspended fuel sales to civilians.

Uh, they're sequestering fuel supplies for the military, which I think is a

significant step. Um, this is all the result of what, uh,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calls, uh, the long range sanctions

against Russia. They have taken it into their own hands

to strike Russia's oil refineries and ports, to try to undermine Putin's

ability to finance the war. And that is, uh, increasingly effective

because of, uh, better drone capability, particularly mid-range drone capability

by the Ukrainians. And, you know, the estimates are that,

uh, Russia's refining rates are down between 20 and 30%.

Um, and Russia has suspended gasoline exports, uh, through July at least,

which is kind of a remarkable thing when you think about it.

Russia is the second largest oil producer in the world for them to have

to, uh, take such dramatic actions after having been a, you know, a major

gasoline exporter. It's really fascinating.

And we've talked before about how Russia, oddly, has been able to kind of

insulate its economy despite the sanctions regime, despite being kicked

off Swift in these other implementations.

The Russian economy was doing better than a lot of people expected.

But these oil strikes have really, really had an impact quite quickly.

And I was reading that Russia is going to be importing importing oil by sea for

the first time in. And how long?

I don't know the answer to that. I'm hoping you do.

And is that's in itself quite significant.

Yet reportedly, they are planning to import gasoline by sea because of these,

uh, gas. And it is caused by the refinery, uh,

explosions. Uh, and remember, it's hard to sometimes

get these refineries back up and running because of sanctions.

They involve Western parts in some cases.

There's not a lot of data that the Russian government has stopped

publishing data on refinery rates. Um, so it really strikes the heart of

Putin's social contract, right? When he took over in 2000, the deal was

he would provide economic and political stability in exchange for Russians

staying out of politics. And he's been able to continue that

through the war, partly through the record high state spending on the war

effort which caused the sugar rush in the Russian economy.

Um, but that is now unraveling, in part because of building sanctions pressure.

Uh, as well as, um, you know, these, these refining, uh, attacks.

Um, and I think that is potentially going to roll through the economy and

cause the economy to slow down even more, spike inflation more, um, but it,

you know, has the potential to spark social unrest.

I mean, fuel shortages tend to do that. So I think this is one to watch very

carefully. Stefan, you've done such fine reporting

on the way that Ukraine has waged this war, that the drone technology that they

pioneered and used. And I wonder if you kind of what we're

seeing here in the broader context of, of the entire conflict, um, using drones

to attack Moscow is a mark, a departure from what we had seen in the past.

I'm curious, is that a strategic move on Ukraine's part as they technological

advancement that's allowed them to to do that?

How should we see this kind of encroachment on Moscow, which is, as you

say, is getting at the heart of the social compact the President Putin had

with his people. Yeah, it really is.

The Ukrainians, uh, have the upper hand now because of their sophistication with

producing these, um, uh, mid-range drones and in many case, long range

drones that the Russians are struggling to defend against.

And it's a combination of increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian drone

capability, uh, with, uh, shaky Russian air defenses.

There's some speculation that the Russians are using, uh, sort of new

recruits for, for, uh, manning some of their anti-missile defense, uh, systems.

And that's causing these weaknesses. They're allowing Ukraine, Ukrainian

drones to get through. But more broadly, Russia is struggling

to recruit, uh, to the front line, uh, to replace those who've been pulled out

to, you know, by death or being injured. You know, the casualty rate is higher.

And I think that is showing Ukraine, um, uh, stronger and that that manpower

advantage that the Russians had, um, isn't as strong because of the Ukrainian

drone capability. And I think that could feed through to

the peace talks and their ability to try to gain leverage to negotiate some kind

of end to the war. So, yeah, Stefan, before we let you go

talk to us about Putin himself and at what point he starts to possibly

capitulate and realize that the internal pressures are such that he has to come

to the table? I read that Roman Abramovich, who's this

big, you know, oligarch, former owner of the Chelsea Football Club, went to

Zelensky and offered to try to mediate. That, to me felt like a sea change.

If these very powerful Russian magnates are suddenly seeing it impact their

bottom line, could they be the ones to finally get put into the table?

I think that was an attempt by Zelensky to open a channel.

Uh. Uh, the the problem is that Putin does

not seem interested in ending the war, and he's getting regular briefings by,

uh, Russian military officials, which are giving him one, uh, version of the

story of what's happening on the front line.

Um, I do think that the Ukrainian strategy of trying to bring the war home

to Russia so that they can no longer ignore the effects of this war that's

happening, you know, far away to, uh, to increase pressure, uh, and opposition to

the war. I think that is effective.

And it is a very clear strategy by the Ukrainians.

You know, the the Russians have been hitting, uh, Ukrainians far from the

front line with these attacks on civilian targets.

They attacked this Orthodox church. Um, so you're getting these, uh, what is

being billed as a response? But I think it's actually a very, uh,

astute Ukrainian military strategy to try to spark social and economic unrest.

Stephanie, great to speak with you as always.

Stephanie Baker, senior writer for Bloomberg News and the author of

Punishing Putin. Thank you for the time on the segment.

I've been to that church. It's really incredible.

It's over the city. All right.

We are monitoring the summit in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Vice president JD Vance expected to speak soon ahead of four way talks with

Iran. Continue to monitor that.

Up next, how AI is playing a bigger role in what we buy online.

As Amazon kicks off its week of Prime Day sales.

That's coming up next on Bloomberg this weekend on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg

Television, Bloomberg.com, and the Bloomberg Business.

And stay with us.

Amazon kicks off its annual Prime Day sales event this week, one month earlier

than usual. The world's fifth largest company trying

to compete for fewer discretionary dollars from consumers as AI takes a

larger role in the shopping process. With us now is Poonam Goyal, senior

e-commerce and retail analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.

Great to have you with us. Let me play the role of the cynic here

who thinks this is a silly, made up holiday that I guess many millions of

people participate in. But how critical is it to Amazon's

bottom line and why the move in date here?

Why move this up in the way in which Amazon has here.

So it is very important for Amazon. It's a time where they can offer deals,

um through their own products and their third party products and really drive

consumer spend. It's about pulling spend forward, right?

If you think about the holiday calendar year, there really isn't such an event

in the summer outside of back to school. So when they launch this in the summer,

it was just a pull forward much of the spend to try to grab the consumers

wallets and dollars share earlier. Do they do that?

Yes. And how important is it to answer your

question? It's very important they don't disclose

how much they capture on Prime Day. But we do know that it's a meaningful

driver to their top line when it comes to the bottom line, because it is deal

driven. I would think that, you know, a lot of

it doesn't flow to the bottom line as there are deep discounts placed in here,

just like they are on Black Friday. So then what is the point of this if

they're not really making a bottom line profit off of this?

Is it just to get consumers in the door? It is to get consumers in the door.

But more than that, it's to get Prime members.

If you think about the Prime ecosystem, over 200 million Prime members around

the globe, what this day does, and based on our survey that we ran for the last

five years, is it attracts more prime signups.

So you can only shop on Prime Day Prime deals if you are a Prime member.

And in our survey, we asked this every year to, you know, if you don't own

Prime, why and do you plan to sign up for Prime?

And what we found is the younger generations, the millennials, the Gen

Z's are very likely, if they don't have it, to sign up for Prime Day and then

keep the subscription indefinitely. So that's where the value at is.

Thank you for including millennials and the younger generation.

We appreciate that here at the table. Go ahead.

Go to meet your colleagues. Have done this survey of consumers.

We're going to you're going to maybe avail themselves of these discounts.

And you look at kind of spending during Prime Day.

That's one of the questions that you asked.

How much consumers intend to spend when when these Prime Day celebrations are

underway. And I'm curious what those numbers tell

you. Maybe we have a screen share that we can

put on the screen. It seems like it's mostly in the middle

there between 101 and $200. So not an extremely large amount of

money that people plan to spend. What does it tell you about the health

of the consumer more broadly, their appetite to spend more, their capacity

to spend more right now. And we see kind of the economic

constraints at play that we do. Yeah.

So consumers are definitely pulling back.

And which is what makes this day important, as you mentioned.

You know, when you look at the sweet spot, are that mid-range here between

100 and $200. It's about the same really as last year.

But when you look at the higher band here at the $500 or above, you can see

that there's a slight pullback. So there is some pullback that we are

expecting this year based on higher gas prices, just inflation from tariffs,

etc. and we do think that consumers are going

to be deal savvy. In fact, uh, you know, in our survey, we

had asked how many of you have a list before going into Prime and what you

want to buy. And it was over 50% said that they have

a list of what they intend to buy on Prime Day.

And not only that, when we look at the categories that they're buying on Prime

Day, it's not your big ticket items. I mean, it is, but it isn't all of it.

There's a lot of everyday items that they're planning to buy.

And that just kind of goes to show you that Prime Day is important because

they're looking to buy what they wanted for maybe the last three months or into

the next three months on Prime Day to really take advantage of those deals.

You also found in your research that agent sales are increasing to $500

billion by 2030. And I turn to our producer this morning,

Patrick, and I said, what does that mean?

Does that mean like I is procuring things for companies.

And he said, know that it can include a lot of things.

So can you explain to us what you mean in a retail setting by agent, sales

agent, tick agents, and why this is going to be such a big thing and already

is becoming such a big thing so quickly? Absolutely.

So when you think about e-commerce sales today, most of them happen through your

mobile app. You browsing and buying them directly.

Agenda has a few different ways you can look at it.

One is fully energetic and one is semi tech.

So the $500 billion number that you refer to as fully agent tech, that means

that you go into an agent and you say, I'd like to buy a black dress for prom.

Let's just say that that's your query. That's all you have to say.

One prompt and it knows where you want to buy it and knows how much you want to

spend, and it knows how soon you not need it.

And it just ships to your door. Now, is that going to happen for that

black dress for prom? Probably not.

But will it happen for your laundry detergent, for your gallon of milk?

For your tools? For your tires?

Sure. So replenishment items are a big part of

the full genetic equation. But semi a genetic, which is when you

use an eye agent to talk back and forth to like Amazon Alexa for shopping.

It's when you engage the agent to search for something.

For example, when you use Alexa for shopping, you go ahead and say, I want

this power washer, for example, and find me the best power washer.

It needs to wash this many square feet, it needs to have eye abilities, etc.

and it needs to be under $500 today at $650.

When it drops to 500, I should have it. And it just happened in three weeks.

When it drops, you'll have it at your door.

So that's on my agenda. And we think over 60% of transactions in

e-commerce in 2030 will have an agent involved in one way or another.

Goyal. Hitting on what Christine, I know has

been searching for that power washer that you've had your eye on for many

months now. I could I could find something to power

wash. You don't know my life.

I tell you, this is your apartment needs to be power washed and

put in oil. Bloomberg intelligence, thank you very

much. Appreciate that.

Ahead of Prime Day, are you a celebrant to Prime Day?

I mean, not actively, but you seem like a bit of a Prime Day.

Prime Day avoider. Yeah, I feel angry about it.

If it feels like a craven capitalist play, I do feel bad about it.

I tend to avoid it. But my mother's a big fan and she's

always been my agent. We'll be taking care of it for me, and I

won't have to worry about these principled stands.

The robots are going to save us all. Yeah.

We're coming up on the 8:00 am in New York City.

The next hour of Bloomberg. This weekend starts right now.

Welcome to Bloomberg this weekend live from New York with David Gura, Christina

Ruffini and Lisa Mateo. The latest headlines, analysis, big

interviews and the stories that hit home on your days off.

Welcome to Bloomberg this weekend. It is 8:00 am in New York from

Bloomberg's world headquarters in New York.

I'm Christina Ruffini. I'm David Gura, alongside Lisa Mateo.

We're bringing you the latest breaking news reports, analysis live this morning

every weekend from 7:00 to 10:00. And, Christina, we're focused on what's

going on in Switzerland this morning as we await the start of this meeting

between, yes, the U.S. and Iran, but some intermediaries as

well. That's right.

We've been looking at live pictures on and off this morning.

The flags are up, the lights are set. The individuals are not in the room yet.

And as you know, these things can get delayed and delayed and delayed because

when it comes to diplomacy, even where the flag flags are standing can be

something that is contentious and obviously high stakes there for all the

parties. But hey there, at least in the hotel, if

they're not in the room. So this this could be progress yet this

morning. Uh, Lisa, get us up to date with where

we are. Things.

You got it. And let's start there.

Qatar says high level U.S. Iran talks have begun in Switzerland.

Vice president JD Vance is there with Jared Kushner and U.S.

special envoy Steve Wyckoff. They're looking to settle the issue of

the Islamic Republic's nuclear program and permanently reopen the Strait of

Hormuz. Iran negotiators.

They arrived in Switzerland yesterday. Pakistan and Qatar, they are mediators

in the talks. The meeting comes after Tehran said it

closed the Strait of Hormuz because of Israel's attacks in Lebanon.

But earlier Saturday, Vance told Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends Weekend

that's not true are now open.

The Iranian military is now destroyed. The Iranians have committed to, of

course, destroying that stockpile of enriched material.

But we have a lot of economic pressure applied to the Iranians that we would be

willing to relieve if they do what we need them to do.

U.S. Central Command said commercial ship

traffic increased in the strait on Saturday with 55 merchant ships

transiting cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil.

The U.S. and Iran are a few days into a 60 day

window for negotiations after reaching a memorandum of understanding on

Wednesday. Tehran has warned it will require ships

to have its permission and mandatory insurance in order in order to cross the

waterway. And when its social media posts on

Saturday, President Trump said there could be no tolls during or after the

ceasefire period unless they were imposed by and for the United States of

America. Meanwhile, three fully loaded India

supertankers have re-emerged in the Gulf of Oman today, pointing to a Hormuz

traffic uptick. That's according to ship tracking data

compiled by Bloomberg News. Now, the ships were last seen trying to

cross the Strait of Hormuz late Friday and carry between them nearly 6 million

barrels of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil. Pope Leo took a day trip to northern

Italy on Saturday. The pontiff exalted the first American

saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, as a model for Christians today to care for

migrants in need as she visited her birthplace.

The visit to northern Italy. It's part of Leo's summertime grand

tour. His next Italy day trip, July 4th.

That's when he heads to Lampedusa. That's a Sicilian island, and it's a

major destination for migrants fleeing North Africa.

For Italy and the U.S. open.

It enters its final day at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island.

Wyndham Clark tops the leaderboard seven under par, followed by a four way tie, a

second at one under par. And that includes the likes of Sam

Stevens and also Scottie Scheffler. David, Christine and Lisa, thank you

very much. Just want to go back to what we're

following over the course of this morning.

That is the beginning of these talks, these direct talks between the United

States and Iran, Qatar and Pakistan participating in those as well.

They're taking place in Switzerland. You see the conference room there at

this resort on Lake Lucerne, where the first conversations are going to be

taking place. Christina, we understand there's going

to be kind of a quad format. All of these participate participants in

the room at first, and I think what's really going to be hammered out today,

and we'll see if there is a resolution here as a result of it, is is what are

these negotiations going to look like going forward.

We're dealing with a very limited time horizon here.

60 days on that memo of understanding. We've ticked through a few of them

already. So I think every one of these

participants, well aware of the fact that they don't have a huge amount of

time here. There is an appetite, I think, on

everyone's part to make progress. And as we've seen over the course of the

last 24 hours, um, things can change very quickly.

I'm thinking of the Strait of Hormuz, which we thought was open and now seems

decidedly not open, although there's some pushback on that from Central

Command. This seems, uh, a little bit emblematic

of how these talks are going, because it is difficult to get these, these two

parties in the room to agree on anything.

And it seems like they're going in disagreeing on the facts at hand,

because you have Iran saying the strait is closed and you have Washington saying

the strait is open. So to try to break that down for us,

we're going to go to our colleague Bastian Brenner.

Right. Who is there in listen, at the summit,

um, what is happening? Is the strait open?

Is a strait closed? Are the talks happening?

Are they not just bring us up to date? Well, things are changing pretty

rapidly, and there's few people who really know any answers here.

So, um, what I can say is we are at this, uh, luxury resort overlooking Lake

Lucerne. It is hot here.

Um, Switzerland is in a place right now. Um, and, uh, what I can say is that, uh,

four party talks between Qatar, Pakistan and the U.S.

and Iran are supposed to happen, uh, imminently in these minutes, but, um,

they have not started yet. That means they are running a little bit

behind schedule. The first full party meeting was

initially planned for about 130 local time.

That's about half an hour ago. Um, and, uh, yeah, just now that they,

uh, they have not yet. Uh, but like, from what we hear, that's

not due to any disagreement, but just due to bilateral meetings, uh, running

over, to be fair morning, here in Switzerland.

Yeah. Uh, has been filled with, uh, bilateral

meetings between those four parties. Everyone, like, kind of match, uh, each

other apart, obviously, from, uh, Iran and us.

Uh, so, um, just this just taking a little bit longer, the preliminary talk

than we are waiting for the four parties now to come together for the first time,

as I say, started to talk to us. To be fair, running 30 minutes behind is

pretty much on time for one of these things.

I think once you get the past the two hour mark, then I'd start to be

concerned that worried um, best and just situate us.

If you would tell us a bit about this resort and maybe give us some sense

through that of the level of proximity that these parties are going to have?

Yes. We've seen the conference room.

We've seen the the table trade in that, that you forum.

Um, but are these are these. Is this a resort where you could bump in

and an Iranian could bump into a U.S. delegate, for instance?

And technically, they could do in the same building.

Right. Um, the thing is that they probably

won't because they are on in different parts of the building or they keep

things separate, is what we understand. So, I mean, technically they could bump

into each other. Um, yeah.

It's, uh, it's it's one building and it's a very, you know, it's a very fancy

resort here. Um, it's on a mountain top, uh, which

makes it a good location to hold these high level talks because it's very

easily to be cordoned off. The Swiss government held a, uh, summit

on Ukraine here a couple of years ago. Um, basically, it's every time when

there is, like something with high level international VIPs happening.

Like, usually you go to veterans talk in Switzerland.

And also Switzerland has a lot of experience.

Uh, in Iran, you are the U.S. protecting power there because we do not

have official diplomatic relations. So we do them through the Swiss.

So this is a good place to try to have, I think, a productive conversation.

I do want to ask you about where these parties are on the nuclear issue.

Do you feel like they're any closer? I know that the nuclear issue is

something that is going to be negotiated, uh, reportedly, allegedly 60

days after this first tranche, but this has to be something that people are

talking about. It has to be something that is being

broached at least, uh, at least on its face in the room with these mediators.

So from what we understand, and I'm going to be honest with you guys, like

what we understand is very limited because there's very little really

seeping out. But from what we understand, the issue

being discussed right now is really more like to develop a shared understanding

of like how to, um, put this memorandum of understanding the preliminary deal

into practice. So it's really more talks about how are

we going to be talking. Um, and um, from what we hear, uh, that

will be topical point. Like apart from like this shared

understanding would be, uh, Lebanon, uh, where, um, fighting like, uh, re and

fire fighting has obviously delayed the start of these talks, which they were

supposed to kick off on Friday, but I kicked off two days later.

Um, so that is more that I think the, um, nuclear issue has not really come up

yet. But again, like, we are not really sure

about that. All right.

Bastion. So thank you so much.

Uh, you know, we'll go back to you if we see any action or if you guys got any

more news over there. Thank you for keeping tabs on everything

that's happening. One of the critical aspects of that

memorandum of Understanding is the status of the Strait of Hormuz, as we

were just discussing. Despite currently being engaged in

talks, Iran and the US are at odds about its status.

Is it open? Is it closed?

More importantly, is that waterway safe to navigate?

A critical voice on this issue is our city, our Domingos.

He's the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization and

a frequent visitor here on our show. Mr.

Secretary, it's nice to see you. Thank you for joining us live on a

Sunday. And my first question is, what is going

on in the strait? Are you considering it open?

Closed? What is the truth here?

Uh, we are having a limited number, but an increasing number of vessels

transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Uh, yesterday and on Friday, the average

of vessels, uh, transit that transited the Strait.

From our records, it's around 30 vessels, of course, is still below the

130 vessels today, but it's higher than the very limited numbers of around seven

that any no. One thing would actually transit in the

street. Most of them are using the traffic

separation scheme that temporarily has been established by Iran.

Some others are going through the Omani waters.

But what I can tell you is that we're being very heavily engaged with Oman and

the United States in particular, to set up their notice to mariners in order to

start up the process of evacuating the vessels.

We want to make this as safe and secure as possible, and, of course, is to avoid

collisions. And this is why the information that we

you right now, it also has to do with the limited numbers of ships that should

be transiting until we can provide more information.

And this is another engagement that we have with the industry representatives.

Mr. Secretary General, let's talk a bit

about the information that we have. You have at your disposal.

So you said about 30 ships made it through yesterday.

We see from Centcom an estimate of 55 merchant ships transiting that strait

yesterday. How difficult is it to ascertain who's

getting through and who isn't. I know that there was some mixed

guidance on whether or not satellites should be turned on or off.

The transmitter should be turned on or off.

Um, what do we know about what we don't know at this point?

Uh, that's precisely one of the cases we've been working very closely in the

last couple of days with the Sultanate of Oman and the United States, in order

to outline the route that it could be used, uh, to evacuate the vessels via

the Omani waters. And, of course, we need them to send

that information out to all the vessels and inform them to turn off their

navigation systems. Uh, the Iranians are also working with

us in order to define what is the mechanisms for the ships to report

there. But we don't want vessels to rush and

start crossing the straits. We want to avoid collisions.

The number that I'm giving you is related to those, uh, IMO number vessels

that have been transiting. I'm aware of all the vessels that

actually not mentioned, vessels that have been thrust into the strait.

Some of them military vessels. But we're not counting on those, so

that's why we may need more time to verify it.

But what I have for you right now is roughly around 30 vessels on Friday and

30 merchant vessels on Saturday. In the Gulf.

Do we know how many are still stuck and haven't gotten out?

I'm sorry. Sorry.

I think my my audio cut out. I heard it myself.

Do we know how many vessels are still waiting to get out?

You told us how many have transited. And we've been talking about how many

ships and mariners are still trapped there.

Is that number still significant, or is it much less than the last time we

spoke? Uh, we have a range of 550 to 600

vessels that, uh, need to evacuate via the Strait of Hormuz.

I'm talking about the merchant vessels, which I am a number, not the vessels,

uh, like platforms or offshore supply vessels.

Uh, and when it comes to seafarers, um, the gross total, of course, is around

20,000, but 11,000 out of those that normally will translate in and out of

the Strait of Hormuz. And those are the numbers that we're

working on right now to evacuate. Does the International Maritime

Organization take a position on the prospect there being tolls on

international waterway like this one? We've heard from the Iranians seemingly

some desire to impose tariffs or tolls on ships making their way through with

their blessing. Uh, we heard from the president, United

States, in a post on social media in recent hours.

There'll be no tolls unless it's a toll, uh, exercised by the U.S.

government itself. What is your organization's position on

whether or not there should, in fact, be tolls on on waterways like this one?

The organization's position is very clear, and I've been very consistent on

this message. When it comes to straits for

international navigation, there's no fundamental basis for any international

law to actually introduce or impede this transit by it, by the imposing of tolls,

her fees. And that's a message that I maintain

with the countries in the region, because we need to take these step by

step. And as we are progressing with the

positive actions that have been taken recently.

We are exploring what kind of mechanisms we can put in place voluntary mechanisms

within international law that can assist the countries to manage these, um, heavy

transit routes like international straits.

And of course, this is aiming at providing further assistance for

navigation and protection of the environment and security.

We've done it in other parts of the world like Southeast Asia, and there's

no reason why we cannot explore those kind of mechanisms.

But anything has to be in accordance with international law.

In total, SIM fees on this straits are not, uh, don't have any fundamental

principles to be introduced by any specific country.

And you would include, uh, an insurance fee in that same.

Are you are you are you interchanging if there were some sort of nominal

insurance fee, that's the same functionally as a toll

like operations when it comes to insurers.

Let's go some of the vessels. Uh, the reality is that countries,

whenever the vessels call at their ports for the services that they provide to

those vessels reaching the shore links, they can introduce some kind of actions.

But when it comes to insurance, we manage only those that are prescribed by

the international regulations, particularly on liability, and those are

not imposed bilateral or unilateral by countries.

Those are in accordance to international conventions.

Before we let you go, I did want to ask about the status of the mines.

I'm wondering, have any ships encountered these in the strait?

Is there a chance that they're not functional?

Do we think there's still a risk? And how are they getting removed?

Where we have information on the risk of mines in the strait.

It's actually on the traffic separation scheme that has been established more

since 1968. That's the infill that we receive.

And this is the reason why, as an extraordinary measure, we're using the

route that Iran has actually announced, as well as the one that we are

developing with Oman in order to evacuate the vessels.

Uh, we have information that, of course, in accordance to these agreement, uh,

impending. The technical discussions that are

starting. Uh, Iran is going to demand in that

area, and, of course, that all the countries that are ready to provide

assets in a system to make sure that the strait it's clear as soon as that is the

case, then, of course, navigation is due to resume using the traffic separation

scheme established by the EMA. All right.

Mr. Secretary, our Senator Dominguez, thank

you so much for joining us. Well, joining us now is energy market

expert Dan Dicker. He's also the author of the book Oil's

Endless Bid Taming the Unreliable Price of Oil to Secure Our Economy.

Dan, it's great to speak with you. I'm going to pull back the curtain a

bit. You are, and I we're in a green room and

you admitted to me this is a dire time in global energy, the likes of which you

haven't seen before. So let's let's set the table with that.

Give us a sense of how bad the picture is for global oil markets, global energy

markets right now. And we we hear the president President

Trump saying Straits open. It's going to be like a gusher.

Oil is going to be flooding out of there.

What does that mean? Yes, for the market, but for the price

that people are paying at the pump as well.

Right, David? So what you have is you have the, the,

the rhetoric of the president, obviously, to a bone in the market where

the physical realities are starting to assert themselves.

But they hadn't so much for the last three months of this war.

I mean, we've basically had stockpiles and I'm not talking about, um, um, a

state run stockpile. So I'm talking about generic stockpiles

that are held by oil companies. In some cases, they're they're, um,

they're sovereign stockpiles, but they've been they've been withdrawn from

to try and cushion the blow of this export disaster, the likes of which, you

know, I've never seen in my 45 year history of oil.

I mean, there's 6 to 8 million barrels of oil that's not getting to its source,

uh, on the global marketplace every day. This has been going on for a long time

and continues to go on no matter what the heck is going on with, with, you

know, Memorandums of understanding and and deals.

And whatever Trump says is going on in the Strait of Hormuz, which is not.

And so you're down in the global stockpile area of about half a trillion

barrels of oil, um, globally. And that is just incredibly significant

towards, you know, what is, uh, what's going to happen in the marketplace if a

huge amount of oil doesn't reach, um, its targets at some point pretty darn

soon. And even if it does, it might not be

enough to, to, to stop what is a tremendous, uh, issue with global

supply. So, uh, you know, what I see in a

marketplace is a bunch of and this is, you know, where I really come in with

where there is some, some insight I can provide.

There's been a jawbone in. So there's been a trader's reluctance

over the course of the entire war to pay up for oil.

That should be a heck of a lot more than 110 or $115 rent at its height.

If we had this kind of global supply shortage.

You know, in normal days, you know what? In the in the years that I've been

trading it, um, it would have meant, uh, price of oil far higher than than, you

know, 110 or $115. And now what's happening is that some

traders have been so frightened to own oil because, you know, Trump was

announcing 32 deals, you know, every separate Sunday.

There was a deal coming when the deal finally came, you know, these traders

were at war and now they're spectacularly short at 75, $76 a barrel.

Now, uh, to give you some perspective, this is exactly the range that the oil

was in. For two years prior to this war, we had

been hovering between 55 and $75. I mean, it's the upper end of the range,

but it was, you know, the part of the range when oil was as boring as I've

ever seen it in 20 years. And and supplies were very steady and

there was really nothing dynamically tuned to make the price of oil go up.

And now we're at a place where the upper end of this deadly boring range that for

some reason takes a turn, turn the risk premium of the supply from something

that was being underpaid to to a release premium.

So that's being incredibly overpaid in my view.

So, you know, looking at oil right now, particularly with the tenuous nature of

this deal and what will happen with the Strait, you know, I find that the

marketplace right now and gas prices are being overly way overly optimistic to

what likely will happen over the course of the next 60 days.

Okay, Dan, you are speaking my language because this is something I say every

time we have an oil person or markets person.

As someone who covers diplomacy, I keep looking at these emails and these

tentative agreements that fall apart almost six days later.

And I don't understand it. Like Lucy in the football, why people

keep buying in every time there's messaging from DC or from the Middle

East that this is going to get solved, when even if look, even if the 60 day

things holds to me, it seems like you're still going to have a higher cost for

this product, right? Because as we were just talking to the

U.N. secretary general, it is going to cost

more to get people to be willing to go into the Gulf because there is a higher

risk factor. It's going to cost more to get mariners

to, to be on the ships because they don't want to get stuck there for three

months in case this all falls apart again, do you foresee a higher price, a

higher floor, basically for just the cost of doing business in this region?

And why isn't that being reflected in the oil markets?

Right. And this is really the thing that I try

hard to translate to people outside of, of the trader world, because, you know,

that's what I've done. That's been my life for the past 45

years. Understand, if you're a trader, try and

understand for a second. If you see the fundamental reason for

oil to be $120 and not $80, you would normally buy a market, and you'd go in

there and you'd sit there and you'd buy oil at 80, 85, $90.

But what happens when you do that? What's happened for the past three

months? Every time you buy oil at $9,095, Trump

announces some crazy. You know, they've got the outlines of a

deal. Oil for 6 or $7 overnight, and you lose

6 or $7000 for every lot of of oil. That's your lawn.

That's the instantaneous loss that you take.

You sit there and you're sitting on a premium that the president of the United

States with his mouth can destroy you with every time you take a position like

this. And, you know, after you do this 2 or 3

times in the market, which, believe me, I haven't done because I know what's

coming and I've seen this story before. But, you know, I can see, you know,

fellow traders, they every time they go in all this, this, um, this oil market

is fundamentally worth $125. And they're right, Except for the fact

that, you know, you can't get anybody to significantly hold oil through it,

there's no speculative reason. And we're driven, unfortunately, in the

global markets by the speculators, the ones who are inside.

We trade eight times more oil than there is physical oil in the world.

Every month we are saying our price is tethered to what traders do, and the

traders are not willing to to to buy oil for all the reasons that you've seen,

oil goes down to unreasonable prices. The question becomes, when does the

physical reality of these low stockpiles actually hit the financial markets that

are controlling the price of oil? And unless this deal gets done, you

know, to a much more firm degree, oil starts to flow seriously and rebuild

some of those stockpiles that have been draining for the past three months.

That physical market is going to assert itself in a way that we've never seen

asserted itself before. And what that drives, of course, is it

drives a price that doesn't go from 75 to $85.

It's a price that goes in the space of a month from $75 to $135.

And that's why you seen guys like Mike Worth at Chevron and, um, the Exxon guy,

the vice president, come out and say, look, when this happened, stockpiles are

a disaster. And it's really bad out there.

Don't blame us because we've got nothing to do with it.

It's not our fault. But when these stockpiles reach the

physical reality of the futures markets, you're going to see a spike like you

never saw before. Unless, of course, they managed to get

this. Things, you know, significantly correct.

And you do start to see these oil tankers run.

And obviously you agree with me. That's going to be difficult if not

impossible. I mean, they've had the the Iranians

claim the straits are closed today. The Americans know it's open.

I mean, what? What do you believe?

What do you. What I know is that it isn't freely

flowing. Not yet anyway.

I believe what Dan Dicker believes because he said I'm right.

We're only pushing. Guess who?

Tell me I'm right from now on. Okay.

Great to speak with you. Thank you for making some time on this

very busy morning. As you rightly point out, we're at the

we're trying to navigate as they're trying to navigate the streets literally

and metaphorically. The rhetorical circumstance here is the

straight open as a closed. And of course, any new intelligence we

get on that will bring to you over the course of the show.

This way. Before we get there, though, let's go to

Lisa Mateo with some headlines. Lisa, let's do that and update you on

today's top stories. Yes, and this one's just coming out.

The co-founder of video game publisher Ubisoft has died after a plane crash in

western France. Local reports say Claude Guillemont, he

was in the private plane that went down in a resort town on France's Atlantic

coast, and that was scheduled to host an airshow this weekend.

He was one of two people aboard the twin engine Cessna 421.

Ubisoft is a maker of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry franchises.

Can you mount? He is a Ubisoft shareholder.

He was also chairman of Gamer Corp., which makes entertainment hardware and

accessories. He was 69 years old.

President Donald Trump says that multiple individuals have been arrested

for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, adding that would

likely have to be at least partially drained for necessary repairs.

The pool has taken on clouds of algae after more than $14 million renovation

project that included repainting the floor, a shade that was called American

flag Blue, but the paint hit began to peel off.

And in company news, Coca-Cola waging a high stakes battle with the IRS.

The dispute has more than $20 billion at stake and heads to a federal appeals

court in Miami this week. Now, one of the main questions being

raised is if Coca-Cola reports too much profit abroad and too little in the

U.S., we'll see what that answer is. David.

Christina. Mary, I think it was an

okay back to the UK now, with Andy Burnham winning a parliamentary seat on

Thursday. Keir Starmer has been under immense

political pressure to step down as UK prime minister, though he said publicly

he will not walk away from a leadership contest.

It does appear now that may not be the case.

Early this morning, UK minister Peter Kyle told Sky news that star was

reflecting on the political realities he finds himself in.

The Guardian also reporting that it is expected that Starmer will announce his

departure on Monday. For more on Keir Starmer and his

potential resignation from London, we are joined by Daybreak Europe anchor

Lizzie Borden. Lizzie, great to see you.

We are trying to navigate all of this over the course of the morning,

including the the wild undulations of British politics.

I mentioned Peter Kyle a moment ago. You had a marquee moment with him about

a week ago when you broke the news to him.

The defence secretary was was leaving Keir Starmer's cabinet.

Um, talk about his role in the way in which we are getting some insight here

into the kind of tenuous position that Keir Starmer is in.

Well, thank you, David, for having me pick.

To Kyle, the business secretary is an arch loyalist of Keir Starmer's.

And when we had that conversation He was convinced that Keir Starmer wasn't going

anywhere. It is a very different tone we're

hearing from the business secretary this morning.

As you say, talking about the Prime minister, considering the political

realities. He is at his official country residence

of Chequers this weekend. It has been said that he wanted to talk

to his wife and digest the situation over the weekend.

You cite that observer report, many in the media now here speculating that the

podium is going to be outside number ten Downing Street tomorrow, and Starmer

expected to lay out a timetable for his resignation.

How do you see that timetable playing out?

Do you think that that will happen almost immediately, or do you see him

setting up like kind of an extended exit to make sure that there is structure in

place and a predecessor in place to come in after him?

Given how many prime ministers the UK has gone through in the last couple of

years in an effort to find some sort of stability there.

Yeah. Look, if we're going to get a new prime

minister, this would be the seventh in the ten years since the Brexit.

I'm sorry. It really makes you think that,

ironically, we are seeing the political instability that the continent was once

known for. In terms of that timetable ahead, it

depends who's going to be taken, taking over.

Is it going to be Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester who won that

seat in north west England? The vote on Thursday, the result

announced on Friday, or is it going to still be a leadership contest, not a

coronation. So the likes of which Streeting, the

health secretary, may yet want to throw their hat into the ring.

But the Labour Party might not want to have this chaos in unfolding in front of

the nation, which the conservatives remember were known for under Boris

Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. They may want it to be more orderly and

Keir Starmer wanting to preserve his dignity.

In terms of the timetable, does it happen immediately?

Does it happen over a longer period? Andy Burnham might want to have the

summer to set out his policy agenda so that he can come in as Prime Minister

for the Labour Party conference in September.

I just keep thinking about the Liz Truss versus the head of lettuce.

Do we need to pick a different take a different producer?

Lizzie, for those joining the programme, already in progress.

How did we get here? How did Keir Starmer sort of lose the

faith of those in his party? How did his grip on governing become so

loose? What happened over the course of his

tenure? Well, of course, there has been the long

concern that he simply isn't charismatic enough to hold the attention of his

party and of the nation. Personally, his ratings have been

sliding. That landslide vote that he won back in

2024, seen more as an anti-Conservative vote than a pro Keir Starmer vote.

And then the difficulties have only mounted.

We had the Bloomberg investigation revealing the connections between Peter

Mandelson, the former US ambassador, UK ambassador to Washington Jeffrey Epstein

and the appointment process into Keir Starmer's uh, government.

And then most recently, we talked about the defence secretary, John Healey,

resigning. That was because Healey perceived that

the defence spending in a time of war was inadequate.

And then the real pressure has come in the past couple of days because of Andy

Burnham winning the special election up north in the in England, whereby he won

more votes than all the other parties combined.

So you can't argue that he was simply the beneficiary of a split vote on the

right. And many Labour MPs now saying, is this

the man who should lead us into the next general election against Nigel Farage's

Reform UK party? It seems like to many of them, reform

may have actually reached a peak now. And that is a question that we're asking

because Andy Burnham was the face of Labour.

It wasn't a question that was being asked when Labour got pretty much

decimated in the local elections only in May.

Uh, so do they want to have a new leader going into that general election?

Well, according to our reporting, the majority of Keir Starmer's cabinet now

want. Well, they see it as inevitable that

Starmer is going to be replaced by Bernard.

And that includes the foreign secretary of that Cooper.

It's interesting. I want to talk to you about Burnham, but

first I'm gonna play you some sound from his victory speech.

Will we have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it's

working again? To make people see that politics can

make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.

That is the main thing I think we need in this country right now.

For people to feel a sense of hope. Look, it's always easier to be the

candidate, uh, then the principal. But, um, you mentioned that Keir Starmer

is deeply unpopular. One of his big liabilities seems to be

his inability to communicate. People criticize him for just being

boring and not being able to get even the victories across.

Is this something Burnham does better and what are his potential liabilities?

That's what's the perception of Andy Burnham, that he is somebody who is not

necessarily more charismatic, but is just a more normal guy?

He's known as the King of the North. He's been extremely popular as mayor of

Greater Manchester. The question now is whether he can

translate that on a national scale, because he can't just be a professional

northerner is the prime minister. He's got to represent the whole of the

United Kingdom. I should know, I'm annoyed that I must,

but look for markets. Those comments, when he said that the

Westminster shouldn't be in hock to the bond market, a really difficult to

forget. Since then he's tried to walk that back.

He said that he was misunderstood, that he would follow the Chancellor's fiscal

rules, but then his team privately saying that he wouldn't reappoint Rachel

Reeves as chancellor when he's been mayor of Manchester.

There's talk of Manchester reason, but that means many things to many people.

It could mean more collaboration between the public and private sectors.

It could mean more devolution to local governments.

But again, he isn't going to be in local government, so is he going to really

want that? There's an old joke in Westminster, uh,

that a brown knight, a Blairite, a Corby.

I walk into a bar and the bartender says, what are you having, Mr.

Bird? Because over his long career in

politics, he has worn many hats under the different previous leaders of the

Labour Party. We just don't know which Arnie I'm David

and we would get. But if he is saying that he's going to

have all this change when it comes to his team and his policy, his mandate is

going to come into question. So do we need another general election?

I have to break the news to you that our colleague, James Wilcock told us the

exact same joke at 7 a.m.. You don't tell James, but you told him

there. Thank you so much for joining us.

Uh, we really appreciate you. Take the time, Lizzy.

And she is our anchor of Daybreak Europe.

All right. Keir Starmer is still prime minister.

For now. He's taking a stand on social media

safety for kids. Up next, we're joined by a famous

director, British Baroness, who's made this her cause.

She has a new book out. We'll talk to her about what big tech

can do beyond what the government can.

Do.

All right. We're gonna take you live to

Switzerland, where it looks like that high level meeting between the U.S.,

Iran, also with Pakistani and Qatar mediators is about to take place in the

room. Right now.

We can see the Pakistani delegation standing at the ready.

This meeting was supposed to start about 30 minutes ago, but as diplomatic events

go, we're told the one on one bilateral meetings ran over.

So it looks like things should be getting underway shortly.

We've been talking to our folks in Washington and overseas.

A lot of information yet to be told, mainly where these two parties are when

it comes to the MOU, when it comes to what they will be negotiating about 60

days from now, whether the street is indeed closed or open, depending on

who's definition and what the ultimate end goal is for how to deal with Iran's

nuclear program. Just look at what's happening in the

room here. We see those leaders being photographed,

and, uh, Christina knows as well. I've seen plenty of this, too.

This is the pool spray at the beginning. So they're there in the room, being

photographed by the press. Who's gathered there?

And again, this these are for party talks.

Uh, what? Not bilateral quadrilateral.

Quadrilateral? That's right.

Get your numbers ready. Always leads to efficient conversation

anyhow. We're expecting them to be gathered

around that table for the set of talks. And as Christina brings up, uh, you

know, what's so fascinating about this is in that level of understanding, a lot

was detail in broad strokes, those 14 points.

Uh, but really, what has to be haggled over here is what these next weeks are

going to look like as, as the US and Iran and Iranians sit and talk to one

another directly, which is something that hasn't happened now in many years

time. And we still don't know if this is a

format that will hold. Right.

This is something that you do when all the big guns are in the room, when the

leaders are there, and then normally you adjourn and go to separate working

technical level meetings. But one of the, uh, outlying unknowns

about these negotiating processes, especially on the U.S.

side, is how many sub official sub prime, you know, individuals are there.

They've not brought with them a large contingent from the State Department.

They've not brought large contingents of nuclear experts as far as we know.

So will it just be the principals, Kushner or Wyckoff or possibly Vance

talking to or through intermediaries to their Iranian counterparts.

Or will they leave that to other, as yet to be known as individuals, to hammer

out the technical difficulties and details of a negotiation like this?

We shall see. We'll keep our eyes on this room.

And you're bringing up something that's important here, which is just the

fluidity of of all of this. And they've been delayed already.

We saw Vice President Vance leaving later than he thought he would.

That's right. So we're going to step away for the

moment, but we will go right back if we need to.

All right. Starting next year, Britain plans to ban

kids under 16 from social media. No more Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube,

Instagram, Facebook X or any new platform that might pop up.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is still in control for now, says it's a

dramatic step and one that big tech will fight.

British Baroness Byron Kidron is a filmmaker turned politician who

advocates for children's rights and safety online.

She's played a role in establishing online safety standards for kids around

the world, including here in the US. She has a new book Out of Users How Big

Tech Took Control and How to Fight back. She writes, the system is not designed

to ask whether something is good for a child, only whether it keeps the child

there. Duration is revenue.

Escalation is efficiency. More is the business model.

And she joins us now. Let's start with that.

We've seen this roiling debate here in the US debate taking place in the U.K.,

other countries as well, about what role that government could play.

How do you see the government role here versus the role that we as consumers of

this technology, users of this technology, and the company should be

doing themselves? Well, good morning.

And I think I think you raised the most important issue here, which is we've all

got a role to play. And I think if you if you think about

the way that the product is designed to keep attention, irrespective of whether

that is good for the consumer or not, that's the bit that the government,

that's the role the government has to play.

Um, parents obviously have a role to play.

It is an attention economy. Our attention is what keeps it going.

So we could make different choices about that.

But I think that what the book really shows you is the asymmetry of power

between the relative parties. So on the one hand, you got a kid alone

in their bedroom, and on the other hand, you got the deep pockets of Silicon

Valley with all the behavioral psychologists, all the lobbying money in

the world, and like a cat flap into the white House and Downing Street, um, and

all the power that that brings. Then the other issue, it seems to me is,

you know, this is a band for kids under 16, kids under 16 are better at their

phones and technology than a lot of us old folks.

I mean, it seems to me like there are lots of workarounds.

This is hard to implement. And I you know, I don't have kids, but I

know my friends who do talk about they ban phones and their kids still somehow

have Instagram accounts. They they don't let them go to Sephora.

And they're asking them about all these products that they're seeing online.

How do you enforce this? Or is it just the fact that it exists

kind of changes the conversation, especially with companies and

advertisers trying to target kids through these mediums?

Uh, I think there's two parts to that. The first part is that actually the way

that the law will be enforced will be the tech companies have to keep the kids

off. So just certain point they have a

responsibility is not just whether the kids get around it or whether the

parents prevent them, but but the tech companies themselves will be fined, will

be stop, will have business disruption and responsibilities.

So I think that's one part of it. I think the other part, which you sort

of allude to in your question, is this cultural thing, you know, I probably and

maybe even you, when you were a kid, you know, went into a bar before the age you

were supposed to, but, you know, never I would never have done that.

I am a respectable human and journalist. Okay, so but but childhood is a time of

transgression, but it's important to know you're transgressing.

And we have given a generation of children a period of time where we've

said, oh, this is really normal to see pornography to be pushed, pornography,

self-harm, um, um, you know, targeted with advertising, being approached by

strangers. That is a cultural norm.

The adult world says it's absolutely fine.

So go do it now. I think the ban, and I think the ban is

a bit of a crude term, by the way, because it's actually, you know, uh, the

devil, as ever, is always in the detail. But if you're saying you cannot serve a

child, if you're introducing them to strangers, if you're sending them

inappropriate content, if you're addicting them through the night, I go

bring it on. Can I ask you lastly, here, in the

limited time that we have as we watch all these breaking news events unfold,

how you're thinking about AI and the proliferation of these AI chat bots, and

just the way in which children are now having to enter a world in which that

that is something with which they can interact.

So that is the frontier of this battle. I've been doing this for about 15 years.

The book shows some of the some of the victories and some of the pushback that

we've had, but we really are a big tax tobacco moment here because we're

beginning to see court cases. Not saying whether this is personal

choice, but saying, who do you want, when and is it designed to be fit for

human consumption? And that is the moment we're in.

And I comes just at that moment, and I think you will see much faster, um,

moves to look at the sycophancy, the addiction and the age gating of

chatbots. We are seeing some very dangerous

information being funneled to children and adults, I might say.

And and I think that that we have to have a look and make some choices and

say what kind of society we want. At the moment it looks like five

companies are going to be in charge of everything.

And one of the things that I would say to you is, is not whether we regulate or

don't. It's whether society, democracy decides

to regulate or we live by the terms and conditions of big tech.

Stephen Kidron, the Baroness, thank you very much for joining us.

The book is called users. I hope you come back soon.

Great to speak with you, and I hope we can continue this conversation as we go

back to Switzerland. Now, to that conference room where these

four delegations are now gathered and beginning their conversation, first by

addressing the press here and Christina, we see the Prime Minister of Pakistan

there welcoming JD Vance. Right.

Handing the microphone, Minister, let's take a listen to you.

And now JD Vance has the microphones here.

And first of all, I have some notes of appreciation.

First of all, I want to thank the president, United States, who sends his

best to all the great leaders assembled here, because he's empowered us to find

a diplomatic resolution to a host of issues that matter to the American

people. But I think the world the opening of the

Strait of Hormuz, the ending of the Iranian nuclear program.

All of these things have already been accomplished.

The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together?

Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle

East permanently? Or do we go back to doing things the old

way, which is not our preference, but is certainly very much something that can

happen? I have a few other notes of

appreciation. First of all, to the Prime Minister of

Pakistan, a dear friend of the president's, a dear friend of mine, a

guy who has been with his leadership and is very careful and skilled.

Negotiation has got us to the point, uh, to his field marshal in Pakistan, a

senior. I will say that since Field Marshal

Munir welcomed us with the Prime Minister in Islamabad, I have joked that

I have two very, very important people in my life, in Indian and Pakistani.

The Indian is my wife, in the Pakistani is Field Marshal Munir, and I've

probably talked to Field Marshal Munir more than I've talked to anybody else

over the last three months. I would not be here without his

statesmanship. He is a military leader, but I think

he's shown himself to be a great diplomat.

And of course, who's an amazing friend of the United

States of America, but has been also an important part of getting us to this

point. I think it's important for the American

people, but people all over the world to appreciate that what's brought us to

this moment is the president's leadership and the president's

willingness to see Middle East. That is much different ten years from

now than it was ten years ago. And what we're trying to accomplish here

is something very simple through diplomacy, through working together to

transform the Middle East, where I ran and the Gulf have been at war with each

other, or at least have had very unfriendly relations with Iran, has been

a driver of regional instability. Now we see a future where everybody can

work together to promote peace and prosperity for everyone.

What we have already seen back home in the United States is lower gas prices.

We've seen the free flow of oil and gas. We've seen peace, and now we're trying

to build on that to see if we can build something even better and more

sustainable for the future. This is a historic meeting.

Never before. Outside of Islamabad and here.

So outside of the last few months, never before has the Iranian and American

leadership met at such a high level. What the president has asked us to do is

turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran,

and to extend an outstretched hand that says to the people of Iran that if your

leadership is willing to give up being a driver of regional instability, if they

are willing to give up nuclear weapons ambitions for the long term, then the

United States is willing to fundamentally transform our relationship

with that country. That is certainly our goal.

We've already made great progress over just the last few hours, and I expect it

will make additional progress in the Irish Cup.

Thank you all. If you questions.

Just one question so that the main chick bothers me.

Please. First of all, I would like to welcome

you all here, Mr. Vice President, which is the Prime

Minister? Your leadership and field marshal

leadership actually initiating that process.

That's what brought us here today. I think that everyone of you has

highlighted how important is this meeting, how historic is that event and

how significant is that agreement, not only on the security of the region, but

also for the security of the world and for the global economy?

What we have done and what we have achieved, we wouldn't achieve it without

the dedication and the hard work that was done by you all.

Mr. Vice President and Mr.

Steve Whitaker and Jared Kushner, Prime Minister and Field marshal and uh, also,

uh, on the Iranian side, doctor right above.

And doctor, I lost you. I would like to thank all of you for

your leadership and determination that puts us in this room.

And this is not, uh, really, uh, the main celebration, our celebration when

we reach the ultimate agreement. Hopefully this is just the beginning,

and I wish everyone all the best that there will stay dedicated to this

partnership, to support these mediations until the end.

Until we reach a solution, we will always be a partner in bringing more

peace, prosperity and hopefully a better future for our region.

Thank you very much. Big shake.

So guys, we'll take just a couple of questions, and then we're gonna have to

kick out the media and get started with the hard work.

Go ahead. Thank you.

Do you have a message for Prime Minister Netanyahu with regards to Israel's

military operations in Lebanon? Well, first of all, we've seen great

progress over the last just a couple of days and ensuring that the cease fire

holds in Lebanon. These things are always a little bit

messy. If you go back to how much was happening

three months ago and compare it to three weeks ago.

Great progress has been made. If you go back to three weeks ago.

To three days ago, additional progress has been made.

The president has committed us to to see a full regional cease fire.

We found great partners in working with the countries, the Pakistanis, our

friends and Israel. We're all working towards regional

peace. There, of course, are going to be

sometimes disagreements about precisely how to get there.

But I actually feel great about where we are in Lebanon.

There's still some additional wood to chop, but we're going to keep on working

at it. The the question over here,

genocide in Lebanon, as you know, your, um, alignment.

Israel, uh, has something like genocide in Lebanon.

Uh, the main issue is, is stopping this. Oh, man.

I think that the United States and the United States of America have done more

to stop the conflict in Lebanon than any government anywhere in the world over

the last few months. So we're going to keep on working

towards it. As I think a lot of you appreciate,

peace is never easy. Peace always requires a little bit of

work. It always requires a little bit of give

and take. But the present United States is

committed not just to peace between the United States and Iran.

The president is committed to a regional peace, which is why we're here working

so hard to settle our issues. The one last comment I want to make is

what did they really represents is the beginning of a technical negotiation

that's not going to solve every disagreement, but is going to allow us

to sit together as teams for the first time really in history to figure out

what matters most to the respective parties, to settle those issues, to

solve those issues and get to a better tomorrow.

The reason why the political leadership of the respective countries is here is

because we wanted to, first of all, set up the structure for these technical

negotiations. And second of all, make sure that our

teams have our full support and know they can always call on us to break

through any barriers. We got a lot of work to do.

We're excited to do it. Thank you all for being here.

Thank you. That's the voice for the United States,

JD Vance. They're speaking to reporters gathered

at the start of these negotiations that are going to take place over the next

few days, perhaps longer than that. No detail and sort of how they're going

to unfold or what the timing is going to be.

But he did say there the vice president that there's a lot of hard work to do.

And he talked about the historic nature of this meeting.

Christina, the fact that you have the U.S.

and Iran in a room talking face to face for the first time in a very long while

and, uh, some optimism in his tone there that this is going to lead to something

here over the next few days. I mean, he said it won't solve all the

issues, but it allows them to, quote, get to a better tomorrow.

They're setting up structures so that their interlocutors have a support.

And he said they know they can call us whenever anything happens or if they

need it. The formatting of this I want to

emphasize is very odd. So each one of these principles has a

seat at that table with a microphone that they usually press.

And usually when you go into these everybody sits down.

They go down the row. You make remarks.

Uh, our team and our reporters are telling us that the Iranian foreign

minister is in the room, but he wasn't in the shot.

Instead, what you saw was, uh, the Pakistani delegation was their first

standing. Uh, Vice President Vance came up to join

them. And then, uh, Qatar's foreign minister

is also there. Prime Minister, uh, Al-Thani came up and

they headed a handheld microphone that they passed back and forth for some

opening remarks. Now they're going to sit down and

they've kicked out the press. Before you hear from or really see the

Iranian delegation on camera. That, to me is something I don't know

about you, but I've not seen before. No, uh, I think it speaks to the fact

that it has come together rather quickly.

And as I said just a few minutes ago, there's a fluidity to this, this meeting

that, um, continues to play out there. And it was supposed to happen a few days

ago. Uh, of course, the vice president

delayed his trip there for for a couple of days and arrived early this morning

for for these talks, I was struck by the question that he was asked by a

reporter, uh, about what message he has for, uh, Israel's Prime Minister,

Benjamin Netanyahu. As you've pointed out over the course of

the show, Christina, the vice president has not been shy about criticizing now

Prime Minister Netanyahu in recent days, suggesting that the U.S.

is the only ally defending Israel at this point in the entire world.

He said His message is just that the ceasefire that has been in place most

recently, really for just a day or a day or so, is working, is holding, and great

progress has been made, according to Vice President JD Vance.

But we should say Israel, of course not. Part did that number of understanding,

not part of these talks as well. Um, and that that is a bit curious when

you think about how this war began. It began more than 100 days ago, with

the US and Israel launching their strikes.

Very, very tight coordination. At the start of his remarks, the vice

president, uh, thanked, uh, the Pakistanis for their leadership.

Do you think the prime minister but then he also mentioned by name the field

marshal, the army field marshal, who we know has has established a direct

relationship with President Trump and was, uh, by reports kind of the

instigator and facilitator of these talks and is how Pakistan, who we don't

usually see in this moderating, mediating position, came to the

forefront as one of the few countries that really was in a position to have

good relations with Iran and the United States.

We want to go now to Wendy Benjamin, since she is our senior editor in D.C..

Wendy, I just wanted to get your take on what we saw there.

I was talking to David. I don't know if you were dialed up about

the oddness of that format, having those men stand in the middle of the room and

pass a hand, mic back and forth, make remarks in English, and then, you know,

it sounds like at least some of the Iranian delegation is in the room, but

they were off camera. And then the reporters were asked to

leave before we heard from anyone on their team.

Right, right. It had all the hallmarks of being a very

hastily arranged, um, uh, conference. And of course, these talks were hastily

arranged after all of the stop and starts that, um, occurred, you know,

Thursday and Friday and Saturday with Israel and Hezbollah exchanging, um,

fire and Iran saying that the strait was closed, which apparently through our

reporting ships are still getting through.

So it's not close. So this was all very sort of ad hoc and

I think, um, oh, JD Vance's remark sort of reflected that.

He didn't really have all that much to say, except we're going to get down to

it now, You know, when do you. You, of course, covered and oversaw

coverage of the talks that took place that led to the JCPoA.

And we've we've made a great deal of how much of a contrast there is between

what's unfolding now and what what unfolded then how useful is that

comparison as you see it, as we've pointed out many times, you know, months

and months of time was spent in Europe with these parties haggling out over

what the most my new details are going to be.

You had, of course, Europe's involvement in those talks in the way that we're not

seeing now. What are your expectations for what

might come out of this again, that the time period here is so short, is so

prescribed? Well, if it's if it is anything like the

memorandum of understanding that was signed.

Remember, Iran has every reason to say yes to this, right?

Because the bombing stops. Um, they, they get, um, they get a

waivers of sanctions and they get their frozen assets back.

And perhaps there's this reconstruction fund that has very vague parameters and

outlines. Um, and so there's every reason for Iran

to sign on to this. The question here is like what?

What does the U.S. and the global economy get?

And there's still a very big question about whether the Strait of Hormuz will

be a free and open waterway, as it always has been.

And Iran has been threatening to charge tolls.

Now, we even had yesterday President Trump, in a true social post, threatened

to charge tolls himself. I have no idea how that would work.

Um, so Iran has every reason to sign this.

Trump has every reason to sign it, or the U.S.

does as well. Even though so many people, even

Republicans in Congress, are saying that the U.S.

is really giving away the store here. But, um, but the war will be over.

The midterms will happen with gas prices coming down.

We just heard JD Vance say that his accomplishment, what he hopes to

accomplish at these talks is to open the Strait of Hormuz and end Iran's nuclear

program, the second of which may or may not happen.

But remember, the Strait of Hormuz was opened before the bombing started in

late February. So, you know, it's it's everybody has a

reason to sign it. But the accomplishments may not be as

great as they were in that first JCPoA, which was the first time Iran and the US

made agreements to move forward in terms of, um, minimizing their nuclear

program. Wendy, very quickly, before we let you

go, do we know what the rest of this day looks like?

Uh, JD Vance said he only has maybe a day or two to spend.

Other than the meeting that they're having now, do we know are we allowed to

say what's coming down the pipeline with these negotiations, or is it all yet to

be worked out? I think it's all here to be worked out.

Christina. They are just, um, you know, we heard

Vance say, okay, I've got to stop talking to you.

Let's get down to it. And so now the talks are really

beginning, and so we'll see how the day goes.

We'll see how late they go. The later they go, the more sign there

is that they're really getting to the nitty gritty and doing something, uh,

maybe accomplishing something. Um, and so we'll see.

We'll see what happens today. But we don't have any we don't have any

schedule going out for what will happen next.

All right. Wendy Benjamin, send for us in

Washington. Thank you so much.

If you are just joining us, it is just past the hour in 9 a.m.

and we are following breaking news out of Switzerland, where those talks

between the US and Iran with other intermediaries have just gotten started.

David Gura here with Christina Ruffini, Lisa Mateo as well.

We want to turn now to Mark Esper. He served as the 27th defense secretary

during President Trump's first term in office.

Mr. Secretary, great to speak with you on

this morning when there is so much breaking news and I wonder if we could

start with the Strait of Hormuz and just get your read on the the state of play

in that region. We've heard one thing from the Iranians,

one thing from the Trump administration, and this is not novel or new.

We've lived through many weekends where there's kind of been dueling narratives

about what's what's going on, but your sense of the openness of that strait

now, and indeed the role the U.S. should be playing in that region, as its

focus is also squarely on what's happening in Switzerland.

Right. Good morning, and great to be with you

as well. So look, we know the MOU was signed on

Wednesday by the president in, um, in Geneva.

Uh, at this point in time, it seems that, uh, traffic is flowing.

The Central Command reported on Friday, I think that 55 ships have passed

through the strait as of that date. Um, but we know that the pre-war level

of transit by ships was anywhere from 135 to 150 ships a day.

So I think it's going to take some time to see whether it truly opens up in the

sense that the shipping insurers, the ship owners, the ship captains, the ship

crews feel comfortable enough going through the strait.

And I think that's going to be a day by day thing.

We know that, you know, yesterday Iran threatened that they were closing the

strait. Again, it doesn't appear that they've

done that. But this is going to continue to rattle

many of those, those shippers, those shipping companies before they truly

open up and we see pre-war levels. Um, you know, you just described, uh,

the first day in negotiations. Uh, clearly they're sitting down and

talking. That is a good thing.

But we have a long road ahead of us. Uh, with regard to sustaining the

current MoU, the agreement with Lebanon as a spoiler.

And then secondly, I think big picture is getting to the nitty gritty on the

details of the nuclear, uh, deal, if you will, and what that eventually looks

like. I want to ask you about that.

I mean, what is your take? Because we had this MOU and then we had

Vice President JD Vance at the end of last week kind of talking about, well,

this is a starting point and laying out where the aspirations would be, which

were much, much tougher than what was laid out in the MOU and kind of push

back against some of that, even Republican criticism that Iran was

getting the better end of the deal. Do you think the MOU as written favors

Iran over the U.S.? And do you think it's possible to get to

something more substantive, given all those issues you just talked about

within that 60 day window? I have a lot of concerns and questions

about many parts of the MOU. Um, much of it talks about what Iran

gets, such as, uh, sanction free sale of oil, uh, the unfreezing of assets.

And there's only one paragraph that speaks to the nuclear, uh, piece of this

deal. And within that, it only says that Iran

agrees to a, uh, a degree of, uh, dilution or down blending of its current

enriched uranium, uh, through a minimal process of down blending.

But. Well, that leaves a lot of questions on

the table. Down blending from what to what?

What is the stockpile? The amount of material that will be

allowed to keep in country. Will they be allowed to enrich?

Uh, what about the status of the nuclear infrastructure?

What about inspectors? What about snap inspections?

So there are a lot of unanswered questions here which which get to the

you know, the hard part of this deal going forward.

Um, that that has to be answered and none of that other than what I already

mentioned was really addressed in the MOU.

Why do you think that was? Why do you think they were?

Those issues were left out. Well, I think those are the those are

the tough issues, right. That's why the Obama administration

laboured for nearly two years to get what they got out of it.

And I think as the Trump team looks at this, they know that they have to do

better than what the JCPoA, JCPoA brought to the table and put into into

force. And again, that is a really tough

technical details, um, that you have to dig into.

You need the experts at the table to negotiate that.

My understanding is those type of experts will be going to Geneva or

wherever the talks move to, to have those discussions.

But, you know, you're looking at a page and a half framework, 14 points, very

general. Um, uh, and certainly very, very shallow

with regard to the nuclear part. There just wasn't time to get into any

of that type of detail. Mr.

Secretary, you mentioned a moment ago Lebanon as a as a spoiler here.

And I'm curious how you're thinking about the role that Israel has played is

playing as these talks unfold. So, as I noted, Israel doesn't have a

seat at the table for these talks. Israel not a signatory to that memo of

understanding. Um, is that a misstep?

Do you think that this was a war waged by both countries at the beginning at

least. And, and I wonder sort of what level of

control or influence the U.S. has over Israel as they try to have

these talks in good faith with with the Iranians.

Look, it would have been best if they were at the table.

All right. Um.

That said, I hope they were consulted. Uh, the clearly they Israel has

different interests here. You know, uh, we may have started off

with similar goals, but at this point in time, uh, Israel wants to see regime

change. Israel sees Iran and Hezbollah as

existential threats to the country. Uh, Hezbollah continues to attack

Israeli soldiers and Israeli communities in northern Israel.

So, uh, you know, that's those are not the situations we face here in the

United States. So Israel has a right to defend itself

as long as Hezbollah continues to attack.

They will respond. And I think that's going to be a game

going forward, an important item. There's been so much talk about, you

know, Israel withdrawing Israel, you know, not responding.

I think much, much more pressure needs to be put on Hezbollah by Iran to kind

of step back and to and to stop provoking, stop attacking Israel and

Israeli soil. Are you optimistic that's going to

happen here? Uh, no.

I mean, the history of the conflict is that they don't I mean, my view we

should go back to the 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 that

said, um, uh, that Hezbollah was supposed to withdraw north of Litani

River. Litani River.

They were going to disarm. The Lebanese government was going to

take over. And we've had that deal not implemented

for some time and various versions that have come up at times.

Uh, Hezbollah is going to continue to be the spoiler here, despite the fact that,

you know, securing a deal ultimately could benefit them because Iran could

divert anything they get from this deal, such as, um, you know, oil sales, money

on frozen assets, back to Hezbollah, to rearm Hezbollah.

So this is a very complicated thing. And Lebanon's going to continue to be

the spoiler out there. And that was one of the criticism this

president had of the original Iran nuclear deal.

Uh, I do want to address some of the other things that are not in this deal,

including Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and, uh, the ballistic missiles program.

I want to play some sound from the president on that issue from earlier in

the week. If other countries have them, it's a

little bit unfair for them not to have some.

A ballistic missile is not the same thing as what we're talking about.

What are we talking about here? But if Saudi Arabia and Qatar and they

all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's okay.

That's what I mean. I think given the pretext from this

administration on going into the war, that felt like quite the change from the

from the president. I'm wondering what your take is on that.

And at this point, what the U.S. can do if you think the U.S.

will do anything to try to curtail that program.

Yeah. Look at Iran is an international pariah.

They are a foreign state sponsor of terrorism.

It's a it's a terrorist regime. And, uh, they've used ballistic

missiles. And I'll throw into that category

rockets and drones against their neighbors, and not just kind of

attacking military sites, but attacking civilians, civilian infrastructure and

attacking countries that that that never attack them, such as, uh, such as Oman

and Qatar. So I don't see that they need ballistic

missiles. I think they have they have earned the

earned the right not to receive them. And in fact, if you go back to, um, um,

a few years ago, UN security resolutions prohibited arms sales to Iran for those

type of systems. And so, look, I, uh, the only other

thing I add is as when I sat in the seat at the Pentagon, the number one thing we

were concerned about was Iran's ballistic missile program.

They had the largest, most diverse stockpile of ballistic missiles in the

region. I think they should not be allowed to

have them for all those reasons. I'll go back to you sitting in that seat

in the Pentagon, because I'm very curious just about how policymakers do

their jobs with the president acting the way in which he does.

And I don't mean that pejoratively, but he's somebody who I think likes to throw

a lot of stuff out there and sees what happens.

He likes kind of the art of that. We've seen that happen with tolling in

the Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, uh, most recently, for instance, saying

there shouldn't be tolls, but if there are tolls, the US is going to do them.

Can you give us some insight into the degree of autonomy that policymakers

like Steve Whitaker and Jared Kushner? Yes.

Vice President Vance would have at a meeting like this.

And in other words, how closely you think the president is engaged with this

process as it unfolds here? Kind of at a macro level, but it's going

to be a much more granular conversation that's going to take place here in the

in the weeks to come. Yeah.

Clearly he has a lot of trust in what? Kaufman.

Kushner. Uh, I saw that during my time with Jared

Kushner, who I worked with on a few things.

Uh, the president has a lot of trust in him.

I think they generally know the president who he is, what he wants to

get out of this deal. And, uh, you look at the cabinet member.

Uh, President Trump's unpredictability can be an asset in terms of throwing off

your adversaries. It can be challenging as a cabinet

member because what you're trying to do is implement his policy.

And and as he zigzags, it's hard to keep up with that.

So, uh, that's a challenge there. But I think Wyckoff and Kushner

understand that they have a good sense of where he is and, uh, and what he

wants to accomplish. So my expectations, he has trust in